


Redeemer’s Cross

by MS_Christie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Protective Uchiha Madara, Reborn - Freeform, Redemption, Second Chances, Uchiha Madara Needs a Hug, Uchiha Madara-centric, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29979567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MS_Christie/pseuds/MS_Christie
Summary: He was the villain in their history and now he had the chance to go back and fix it all. Still, when his enemy is himself it's easy to lose sight of his true purpose.
Relationships: Uchiha Izuna & Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Madara & Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	1. prologue

_I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory_

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 **Death**.

Falling, flying, spiralling, _dying_.

He was dying.

 **Again**.

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He was moving down.

Falling _down_.

**_Down._ **

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ᵈᵒʷⁿ

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 ** _Up_**.

He was ascending.

Floating, drifting, soaring, _up_.

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ᵘᵖ

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_He fought,_

_and fought,_

_and fought,_

_but somewhere along the way,_

_though he doesn't know when,_

_he got lost,_

_he forgot_

_who he was,_

_and what_

_he was always fighting for._

  
**this is the redeemer's cross**


	2. rhythm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The little drummer girl kicks him out of the afterlife.

"The longer you live. The more you realize that reality is just made of pain, suffering, and emptiness." -Madara Uchiha, the Apostate, and abandoner of dreams. 

::

Quiet. So very quiet. A thick blanket of fog shrouds a great forested space and layers it in damp mystery. There is a river just ahead, and beside it several round stones smoothed by the currents and sand that are pushed aside to the riverbed. He thinks that he can hear the river gushing but the sound sounds far off like a distant echo. It's faint. There is no rhythm to the river, he realizes, and the river isn't flowing. It's simply a long winding road of still unmoving water. Still. Frozen. Timeless.

Quiet.

He never liked the quiet before but after years of constant chaos and destruction and violence...yes, the quiet is welcome. He finally has quiet. It feels rather peaceful. Despite the tranquility, he can't help but feel the ache of loneliness. Where is his brother? Where is his family? Why, he even searches for the idiot Hashirama. There is no one to be found and that unnerves him.

He doesn't remember his first death so he isn't quite sure what to expect with his second. (He has 'died' three times and this time he plans on staying dead.)

He doesn't think himself to be a good person, but if he were still alive then he'd try.

Ra-ta rata-ta-ta dura-dura rata-ta-ta!

He hears the light belting of a small wooden drum and spins to face its source. Bemusement fills him as he finds himself face to face with a pistachio green haired toddler holding a small wooden drum.

"Kon'nichiwa." The little girl smacks her drum twice. She has a large silly smile on her face and big bright round eyes.

"Kon'nichiwa." He murmurs lowly in response. His dark eyes searching the child's face. A sad thought fills him. Has this child died as well? Plenty of children die everyday but that doesn't make it any less tragic.

The girl twirls around and waves a hand through the veil of mist. She fails to catch it and the water particles slip through her fingers. She frowns a little bit and turns back to face him.

"You lost, dura-dura?" She tilts her head curiously. (Pronounced "d-ra", almost like a heartbeat.)

"No," he shakes his head firmly, "I am where I should be."

"You sure, dura-dura?" She asks dubiously.

"I am." He tells her flatly.

She doesn't seem convinced but says nothing.

He sighs and eventually asks for her name.

"Taiko's name is Taiko!" She squeals as she strikes a happy pattern onto her drum. "You have name, dura-dura?"

He looks amused while he answers.

"I do." He drawls, stretching his words lazily. "My name is Uchiha Madara."

"U-chiha Ma-da-ra." Taiko tests as she plays the rhythm of his name to her drum. "Pretty!" She squeals.

He quirks a brow. People have said many things about his name. Some cursing it, others blessing it but never has anyone called it pretty. Uchiha Madara was feared and hated and...pretty? Really? (Inwardly he wholeheartedly agrees. He was pretty.)

"Why Ma-da-ra-sama here, dura-dura?" Taiko inquires.

"I am dead."

"No!" She protests vehemently.

Madara sighs at her troubled expression and calmly crouches down to her level.

"I am a bad man and I have died." He tells her patiently. You are dead too.

"Taiko knows Ma-da-ra not bad!" She insists, "Ma-da-ra make new choices! Good choices!"

The Uchiha's heart warms a bit at her naive and innocent words. He hasn't had her kind of innocence for many years. Honestly, it's refreshing.

"I—!"

"Ma-da-ra not dead!" Taiko continues, "Ma-da-ra's drum still working!" He still has time!

"My...drum?" He repeats blandly.

Taiko places her hand over his heart and nods solemnly. His eyes widen at the act.

"Taiko still feels Ma-da-ra's drum." She informs him matter-of-factly. "Ma-da-ra needs to go back."

He stands stunned as he presses a hand over his chest and feels a pulse. His heart is still beating.

"If Ma-da-ra wants to join the others he must go back first." Taiko tells him seriously, "Ma-da-ra must go and fix it. But Ma-da-ra can't be Ma-da-ra to fix it. Ma-da-ra must be someone else, dura-dura."

"I—-what?" He furrows his brows.

"Ma-da-ra needs to stop Ma-da-ra." Taiko's voice echoes strangely as the fog rolls in and begins to thicken.

"Wait just a second—-that makes no sen—Taiko? Come back!"

"Ma-da-ra still has time, dura-dura!" Her voice sounds weirdly distorted and far away while seeming near at the same time.

Madara scowls in annoyance.

"Where are you?"

Taiko giggles but gives him a stern reminder.

"Don't waste time, dura-dura!"

Ra-ta rata-ta-ta dura-dura rata-ta-ta!

"Wake up!"

He awakens feeling both wet and hollowly cold beneath the air of the night. The flow of the water pushes against his body as he lies in the stream. He is half-propped against a rock and aching all over. The pain closely resembles growing pains but not quite the same. Somehow, he has ended up soaking in the river. He is met with the current's resistance as he stands and tries to trudge to the riverbank.

Startled, he lets out an undignified yelp as he misjudges both the length of his legs and the depth of the river and trips. After face-planting into the water and splashing wildly, Madara growls in frustration and steps onto the surface using chakra and calmly water walks to the riverbank.

Wiping his face and wringing his hair brings him to a sudden conclusion—his hair is far too short and his face is far too youthful and soft, oh no, oh dear: he is twelve again.

Shivering as a gust of wind breezes though him while thoroughly chilling him to the bones jerks him out of his dreadful stupor.

He is alive.

He is twelve.

And he is freezing to death.

It doesn't take much time to be convinced that a simple fire ball jutsu will dry all his wet watery troubles away and keep him relatively warm until morning. With a flash of hand seals, a stack of dry twigs and leaves, and a slight dent in his chakra reserves he makes himself a fire.

He dozes off.

Luckily, the forest does not burn down.

::

The realization rushes to him the next morning and this time it really sinks in.

Madara paces furiously.

He is alive.

He is twelve.

Why the fucking hell is he alive again?

He didn't want to be alive.

He doesn't want a second chance.

He trips over his own legs and falls onto his face, again, while cursing his tiny body and weird perception and shorter stature.

Apparently, it doesn't matter what he wants because fate demands that he redeems himself...or at least that's how he tries to justify his sudden resolve to atone. He tells himself he's still not a good person but the drum brat's annoying voice keeps replaying in his head.

Ma-da-ra make new choices! Good choices!

His own traitorous heart betrays his mind. It's annoying and he actually cares so that makes it all worse. He doesn't know when he is or where he is either but he is alive.

He didn't think himself to be a good person, but now that he's alive he has to try.

Growling irritably, he shuts his eyes and senses the nearest trained chakra signature. Upon pinpointing four of them, he decides to track and chase it. He woke up without any kunai or shuriken or anything! Finding other shinobi could easily remedy that.

Shooting off towards the chakra signatures, he places a hand on his heart.

It pulses.

His drum continues to beat.

He can feel his own rhythm.


	3. melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is this... accidental child acquisition?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I love musi—scratch that, Hamilton?

"The concept of hope is nothing more than giving up. A word that holds no true meaning." – Madara Uchiha, the Bane of Konohagakure.

::

He follows the river upstream, walking against its flow because he knows that where the river came there will be people. He would've followed it downstream but Madara has no intention of seeing the sea. He needs to know where he is, or at least when he is to determine his next move.

He cannot jump to the conclusion of being in the Warring States Era just because he is twelve.

The distance between him and the spark of chakra he senses grows larger with every passing moment and he curses his puny stature. His legs are short and so are his strides and he hates it. Still, he is a shinobi and he easily closes the distance. For a very brief moment, he thinks he senses two signatures. One being very weak and the other seemingly swallowed by the first. Eventually, the pursuit comes to an end and he finds himself watching a strange figure from a safe distance.

A carriage, he notes and watches intently, waiting for its rider to reveal themselves. One person. Mid genin to high chunin level of training.

Of the other chakra signature there is no trace.

The horse shifts and lazily glances around. Madara crouches down lower to avoid its gaze.

The carriage door opens and a young woman steps out.

She is young, he observes, barely old enough to be considered an adult by civilian standards. He would put her around fifteen years old—seventeen at the most, if he were pressing it.

(Old enough to be considered blood-tainted, a darker part of him thinks but he ignores it.)

She has green eyes, hair like ashes, and a feminine face.

It is suspicious that she is travelling alone.

"Hello," she calls and he stiffens as her eyes fall upon his general location. "Is anyone there?"

He debates revealing himself.

He is a child, technically, and has no obvious affiliation with anyone. But she is obviously chakra trained and is basically an unknown.

He is also Madara Uchiha and his worry is not whether he will win or lose a battle but whether a battle can be avoided in the first place by not revealing himself.

The young lady reaches into her carriage and pulls out a bag—inside are nuts and dried fruits—and lays it on the ground.

"I'll leave this here," she says and backs away with an intentional slowness.

Madara snorts at the bribe and her head twitches towards his hiding place.

No point now, he thinks and with a show of something like timidness, reveals himself.

He sees the thoughtfulness in her eyes as she examines him with critical detail.

A medic, he thinks because there's something about the look in her eye that reminds him of one.

"Hi," she smiles encouragingly. "Are you hungry?"

What a question.

He bites back a sarcastic remark because she has done nothing (yet) to earn his snark.

"Everything in that bag is yours." She says and points to the bag. "If you're worried about poison just throw one at me and I'll eat it."

Madara is tempted to do just that and throw one at her head to see her reaction.

But no, he doesn't do that.

(Why would he do that? He is a grown up man in mind not an immature child, thank you very much.)

He picks up the bag and eyes it's contents critically.

Nothing is poisoned.

Huh.

And so he eats one because although he's fully capable of foraging for his own food it's actually nice to taste salt. Even if in the simple form of roasted and salted nuts.

The kid (he calls her that because he is technically old enough to be her grandfather) smiles and offers him some water.

To be polite, he accepts and drinks some but not all.

"I'm Sachiko," the teenager says and stared at him expectantly.

Hm?

Oh.

Oh.

She expects him to give her his name.

Madara decides against saying 'Madara' for obvious reasons. He also isn't very creative when it comes to naming.

He draws a mind blank.

Sachiko is still staring and he realizes that he must give her a name soon or else be thought of as either weird, retarded, or amnesiac.

"Izuna." He says before he can stop himself.

"Izuna," she repeats as though trying to determine if it is a good name. "An odd name... but you wear it well."

He thanks the Sage that he didn't say Hashirama instead.

"Thank you." He says because she fed him and it's the polite thing to say.

"Where are you from, Izuna-kun?"

"Hi no Kuni," he answers because it is the truth.

She perks up.

"Really? So am I." She tells him with a smile.

It dawns on him that this is his chance to figure out when he is right now.

"Where in Hi no Kuni are you from?" He asks.

"Konohagakure," she answers and he nods.

After the founding then, he thinks.

"What generation?" He asks and she pauses thoughtfully.

"My grandfather came to Konoha during the Second Hokage's reign." She says after a moment's thought.

"That's... cool." He says lamely and uses a word that Obito loved to add to many of his sentences. "I used to live in a village in the western region... near Ame."

He could vaguely recall the existence of said village between Ame no Kuni and Hi no Kuni's borders. He passed by it once after giving Nagato Uzumaki his rinnegan.

"Ah," Sachiko nods, "You've come far from home, then. We're near Northern Hi no Kuni now." 

She pauses and regards him with thoughtful eyes.

"Would you like to come with me?" She asks, "I'm actually a kunoichi of Konohagakure. Technically."

Technically? He quirks a brow.

"I used to work at Konoha's hospital," Sachiko tells him after a moment's hesitation. "After Sunagakure's invasion the hospital was destroyed and rebuilt. Then Senju Tsunade became Hokage and changed the program so that some medic nin are required to be stationed in outpost villages to teach and provide medical aid. I'm heading to an outpost village now, actually."

Hashirama's granddaughter was Hokage?

Then Obito is somewhere out there hunting jinchuriki...

Madara sighs and glances up at Sachiko.

I need to plan carefully.

"Take me with you." He says and she smiles.

"Alright," she agreed easily, "come, Izuna. You can rest while I ride. Don't mind the boxes. They're just storage scrolls filled with medical supplies."

Madara nods and climbs inside.

It'll be nice to be able to sleep inside an actual structure tonight.

From inside, Madara can hear Sachiko singing unfamiliar melodies that remind him of home.

He falls asleep and dreams of a mother humming to her child.


End file.
